Symptoms of the dread affliction began to surface on May 18 atShea Stadium. Rockies closer Bruce Ruffin entered the gameagainst the Mets in the eighth inning with one out, runners onfirst and second and Colorado holding a 4-2 lead. Ruffinpromptly walked Todd Hundley on five pitches. Then he walked thevirtually unwalkable Rey Ordonez (six bases on balls thisseason) on five pitches. On his second delivery to the nextbatter, Manny Alexander, Ruffin threw a wild pitch some 20 feetwide of home plate. Ruffin wound up walking Alexander on fourpitches and getting the hook. Fourteen pitches. Two strikes. Thediagnosis was a pitcher's worst nightmare: Steve Blass disease.

Blass, a righthander who had a 103-76 record in 10 seasons withthe Pirates, was the hero of the 1971 World Series and won acareer-high 19 games the next year before he suddenly andinexplicably lost his control early in the '73 season. He simplycould no longer throw strikes and finished that year with 84walks and 12 hit batters in 88 2/3 innings. After anotherscattershot season in the minor leagues in '74, Blass retiredthe following spring. Since then several other pitchers,including Kevin Saucier, Joe Cowley, Steve Trout and SamMilitello, have fallen victim to the syndrome that now bearsBlass's name.

This isn't the first time Ruffin has had trouble with hiscontrol, either. He was first stricken on July 9, 1988, whilepitching for the Phillies; during a game in Cincinnati he threwthree wild pitches in one inning. Later that season he waswarming up in the bullpen at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburghwhen he threw a pitch so wild that it flew over a 15-foot walland struck a fan. Days later Ruffin was throwing in the bullpenat Shea when a wayward delivery hit a mounted-policeman's horsein the behind.

The unexplained wildness appeared on and off for the next threeyears. "I'd hold a baseball in my hand and it was like grippinga can or something," Ruffin has said of those days. "It was likea foreign object in my hand." One fan wrote to him suggestingthat he remove the tin of chewing tobacco from his back pocketbecause it was pressing on a nerve in his leg. A desperateRuffin removed the tin. Finally, at Triple AScranton/Wilkes-Barre in '91, Red Barons pitching coach JimWright helped Ruffin overcome his demons by breaking down hispitching motion and rebuilding it and also by putting Ruffinthrough drills to improve his concentration.

It seemed to work. Ruffin walked only 38 hitters in 119 inningswith Philadelphia that year and eventually signed as a freeagent with the expansion Rockies before the '93 season. He iscurrently Colorado's alltime saves leader, with 60 at week'send, including seven saves in eight opportunities in '97--theonly blown save coming in his blowup against the Mets.

The day after that awful performance, Ruffin warmed up in thebullpen at Shea but was too wild even to enter the game. A weekand a half later he went to Double A New Haven, where Wright isnow the pitching coach. After two successful workouts withWright, Ruffin attempted to throw in the Ravens' bullpen duringa game. "He was flinging baseballs all over the place," says NewHaven general manager Charlie Dowd. "He nearly killed a coupleof our fans."

Ruffin, who as of Sunday was on the disabled list with a "stiffback," also injured his left big toe last week when he kickedthe ground in frustration. "I feel like I've figured out somethings I need to work on," he says. "I just want to focus onthose things and try to block everything else out." Butencouraging workouts have been followed by stints ofcluelessness, all of which leaves Ruffin in an agonizing statethat only a few unfortunate pitchers can truly understand.

"It's a very lonely feeling because after a while, none of yourteammates knows what to say to you anymore," says Blass, now aPirates broadcaster. "But mostly it's horribly embarrassingbecause you're always afraid your next pitch might end up in thehot dog stand. It can be hell just standing on the mound."

AN ENDURING RIVALRY

Legend has it that on May 27, 1984, during one of MississippiState's NCAA regional tournament games against South Carolina inStarkville, Miss., a violent storm arrived just as the eighthinning began. With thunder grumbling and lightning cracklingoverhead, the Bulldogs' Rafael Palmeiro hit a double and WillClark followed with a home run. The duo's nickname, Thunder andLightning, was born.

Some 13 years later, on June 3 in Baltimore, Palmeiro hit adramatic two-run, 10th-inning homer to give the Orioles a 7-5win over the Yankees. About half an hour later in Texas againstthe Twins, Clark completed a 4-for-4 night for the Rangers thatgave him a gaudy .392 average. It was just like Clark to trumphis former teammate.

Though both were stars at Mississippi State from '83 through'85, it was Clark who won the '85 Golden Spikes award as thebest amateur player in the country. Clark was chosen secondoverall in the June '85 amateur draft by the Giants; Palmeirowas selected 22nd by the Cubs. In his first seven major leagueseasons, Clark drove in 100 or more runs three times and twicereached the postseason. During the same period Palmeiro neverknocked in 100 runs and never made the playoffs.

Finally, in '93, Palmeiro appeared to get the upper hand,hitting 37 homers and knocking in 105 runs for Texas while Clarkwas hampered by injuries and had a poor season for SanFrancisco. When both players became free agents after thatseason, Palmeiro thought he would get a fat contract to staywith the Rangers. Instead, Texas signed Clark to a five-year,$30 million deal, intimating in the process that Palmeiro lackedthe fiery leadership that Clark could bring to a clubhouse.Palmeiro signed with the Orioles, who negotiated with him onlyafter they had failed to land Clark. Even though the two playersreceived roughly the same money, Palmeiro bitterly complained inthe press that he had been ill-treated by the Rangers.

The Texas brass has absorbed much criticism for signing Clarkinstead of Palmeiro, because while the two players haveremarkably similar career numbers (Clark has hit .302 with 225homers and 974 RBIs in 1,557 games; Palmeiro has hit .298 with244 homers and 889 RBIs in 1,517 games), in the three-plusseasons since Palmeiro joined Baltimore he has played more gamesand significantly outproduced the oft-injured Clark. Since '93,Palmeiro has outhomered Clark 112 to 49 and knocked in almost100 more runs. After going on the disabled list three times in'96 and missing the first 12 games of '97 while on the DL with asprained left wrist, Clark was hitting .361 through Sunday,coming off a .394 batting average in May, a club record for thatmonth. Meanwhile, Palmeiro led the powerful Orioles with 11homers and was second on the team in RBIs with 41.

Despite their shared history, the two players have never beenclose. When asked about Palmeiro last week, Clark quicklyinsisted that the subject be changed. Says Palmeiro, "Will and Ihave never really been friends, but I respect him as a player.Will has always received more recognition than I have because heexploded on the scene right from the start of his career, and Ijust keep rumbling along."

WAR OF WORDS

Reds outfielder Deion Sanders and Phillies righthander CurtSchilling got off to a bad start this season during an Aprilgame in Cincinnati, when Sanders stole third base and then fakeda steal of home while the Reds held a comfortable 6-0 lead.Schilling felt that was an egregious violation of baseballetiquette, and when the two teams met again last week inPhiladelphia, Schilling fired a pitch at Sanders's head as hesquared to bunt. Fortunately for Sanders, the pitch ricochetedfoul off his bat, but he nevertheless approached the mound,exchanging words with Schilling. Here's the running dialoguethat ensued between the unhappy couple.

Sanders (after the pitch): "Are you trying to hit me?"

Schilling: "If you think I'm trying to hit you, why are youasking?"

Sanders (after the game): "He is going to have to deal withthis, as God is my witness. I make my money with my body, and togo above my waist is unforgivable."

Schilling: "If he thinks somebody's trying to hit him, he has aresponsibility to himself to do something. But the guy won't hitanybody even when he's got [football] pads on. What's he goingto do, arm-tackle me?"

Sanders: "Please, tell him I'll meet him [between theclubhouses] right now. And tell him if he doesn't show, you areall going to put it in the paper. I'm a grown man, and I don'tlike talking this kiddie stuff in the press."

Sanders (the next day): "I wasn't going to charge the mound andget suspended for three games when I'm only going to get in onelick. It ain't worth it. That dude has no heart. Just ask histeammates. You'll notice he didn't do that last week when hepitched in Cincinnati. He waited because he knew we weren'tgoing to see them again until September."

Schilling: "First of all, he said he's not going to do thisthrough the media, and now he's giving me a two-pagedissertation on heart. Here's a guy who quits his team halfwaythrough the season to go play football if they're out of therace. Heart? You make your reputation getting out Barry Bonds,Ken Griffey Jr. and Albert Belle, not Deion Sanders. What's hedone in this game? He's basically a glorified flag footballplayer who can run."

Does this mean Schilling won't be comped for Super Bowl XXXII?

COLOR PHOTO: TOM DIPACE For reasons he and Colorado can't figure out, Ruffin is struggling to get the ball over the plate. [Bruce Ruffin pitching]